blood red lips and boots made for walking (over you)
by louisaeve
Summary: because james potter is just another rich city boy and lily evans is just another downtown girl in a gang with an unfortunate backstory
1. Chapter 1

tw: rape references, castration, badass women

The first time they meet she's fifteen and young and all too wild. She's just left home, just been kicked out. Her parents have died and then her sister got married and it's not like they ever had money and now she's practically been thrust out of the home she was brought up in (it's not like her aunt didn't offer to take her in but her aunt is one step away from living in the streets and she can't do that to her). So she's moved in with the girls, and they're renting some worn out house downtown London.

She doesn't know how it happened, but all of a sudden she's strolling the streets at night with a fag between her fingers and leather coating her shoulders. But somehow Mary and Marly and Alice and Ainee start looking up to her and are following her around like she holds the world in their hands.

They're all as dirt poor as each other. Mary and Lily were born poor and lower, working class. Ainee and Marly and Ainee are born of immigrant parents and in the 50's of England money wasn't easy to come by if you were a recent citizen. So they took to the streets and all of a sudden in between their normal jobs they were harassing too wealthy people and had easy income.

When the group sees the others, they can immediately recognise that they're not the people that belong.

A smirk on her face, Lily pulls herself off the wall she'd been leaned against in some back alley. "What are you boys doing 'round here?" She raised an eyebrow and cocked her head.

Judging from the smirks on their face, like normal they weren't expecting that she would be the leader. Lily knew she was slim, heck she was slimmer than any girl in their group. And yet none of them would think of disobeying her.

"Boys?" One steps forward, all long dark hair and expensive cigarettes. Rebelling against his family she could bet. "Love, have you looked at yourself?"

"Love?" Lily gave a derisive laugh, and took another step forawrd, with Marly behind her as always, her dainty fingers carefully tracing the scars across her knuckles she got last weekend. "I'm not one of your lovers, pretty boy."

Mary gives a titter, throwing her head back and showing her pale neck, her dark hair flashing as she dropped her own cigarette and stomped it under her boots.

"Would you like to be?" Pretty boy asks, a cocky smirk on his face. "Bet you'd be nice in it -"

He never got to finish his sentence, because Marly's shoved her fist into his face, and knocks him back, a bloodied nose left in her midst as the guy stumbles back.

"Fucking bitch!" He swears, and Marly smirks, as another guy takes a step forward.

"Shit!" Lily can tell he's in charge - this one with glasses. Or maybe they're not in charge. But he's the one stupid enough to stick around and not flee from her and her girls. "Do we have a fucking problem?"

"I don't see a problem," Lily shrugs and takes a drag from her cigarette, even as she can feel the cold steel of the knife on the inside of her jacket. She doesn't think that they'll try anything - a bunch of pretty white city boys don't often - but she's not quite sure. After all she has misjudged before.

"Girl, your friend fucking broke Sirius' nose!" Glasses guy shouts, throwing his hands in the air, and screws his face up as his other friend looks at the guy Lily can now label as Sirius (which only proves her point about stupid rich kids) is attended to by one of the others. There are four of them in total and five of the girls. They can take them easily, especially a group like this.

"I don't see any difference," Lily gives a smirk, and blows her smoke into his face, watching in amusement as his glasses fog up and he gives a splutter. Now a smoker? Maybe.

"We were just walking home," another guy, the one helping Sirius, states.

"We were just having a smoke," Marly says, her red lipstick a mockery of the girls they've left uptown.

"Fucking hell you're bloody crazy!" Glasses looks like he's about to try and punch one of them (Lily has her money on Marly - which would be the best because he wouldn't even get to raise his fist), before another guy pulls him back.

"James, what the hell?" The guy restraining glasses asks. "You can't fucking attack girls!"

"Yeah," Lily puts an innocent pout on her face. "We're so delicate and vulnerable. How could you take advantage of us?" With a batter of her lashes, she drops her cigarette on James' foot, and let's her lips curl again, as she walks out of the alleyway, followed by her girls, Ainee blowing a mocking kiss of red lipstick in their direction, much to the shock of her audience. They're all too used to the quiet, covered girls they're told to pity. ('so oppressed by their family!' their mothers and fathers must cry).

* * *

Lily's found herself once again straddling a man, her lips a millemetre away from her own.

Only her girls are surrounding her and no way in hell is this man going to try anything. Not again.

They don't go looking for help. But when she's having a smoke in the streets and some guy comes up to her and demands that she tell him his rate, before trying to shove his hand up her shirt, she makes an acceptation.

She didn't squeal and didn't shriek. There'd be nothing wrong if she had (she can remember her mother telling her that's what you should do if a man gets too close to you - it's what all girls are told to do). But if she had she'd still have his hands on her and no way in hell is that happening.

She flings him off her and pushes her to the ground with the practice of someone who has spent too much time on the streets and with Ainee and Marly. "You wanna go?" She gives a laugh, and pushes the cool of the blade which she pulled out of her jacket against his neck.

"What the hell you little cunt?" The man swears, his eyes going wide with an emotion he didn't expect to feel tonight. No, that was to be saved for her.

"Funny ain't it how the only thing a man values in a woman is his biggest insult for one?" Lily bites her stained red lips, before spitting in his face, as her girls approach, and haul up the man and drag him into an alleyway.

They press him against a wall, and Lily gives a smirk as she approaches, with Alice and Mary holding him down, a wicked glint in Alice's eyes that rarely appears. She twirls her knife in her hands, feeling the familiar weight in her hands. "So what love?" She frowns innocently, placing a finger on her chin. "You decided hey, I can't find a prostitute, but I was feeling like some sex. Might as well take any woman I find?"

"No!" The man yelps, as Mary pinches at his groin, her fingers bruisingly strong.

"Don't lie to us," Lily hisses, before turning around and shrugging, facing the wall. "But I suppose it doesn't really matter to us. We don't really care for your truth."

"What - what do you mean?" The man's eyes have turned pleading. "I have a wife - kids!"

"You attacked one of the girls," Lily turns around, and puts her all too familiar mocking pout on her face. "And don't worry. You'll be home safely. Marly, you wanna have a go?"

"Nah, I'm pretty sure it's your turn," Marly gives an innocent smile to match Lily's pout, although none of them are stupid enough to think that it's ever going to be real. Or forget about the shotgun she has underneath her jacket.

"Fun," and in a swift motion Ainee pulls down the mans pants, as Lily runs her finger along the blade of the knife, drawing beads of blood.

"Shame," Lily frowned. "I was hoping it would be blunt."

The man's gasping now, and beads of sweat have reached his forehead. He's fat and the briefcase he's carrying has been discarded in the shuffle, though Lily will have to remember to raid it later. "Please, please," the man's begging.

"Shh, shh, shh," Lily murmurs, and places a cold finger to his lip. "Is that what you would of said to me? Or would you have liked my tears and my cries? Maybe I'll like yours," she whispers, and laughs darkly at his shudder.

And then she drags her knife down and holds it there, where it will hurt a man like this most, and laughs at the visible shudder that runs through his body as his stills. Then she drags it up and Mary and Alice drop him in motion as he lets out a scream, and then a sob, as he curls up on the dirt covered floor.

There's a gasp from behind them (and Lily knows it's none of her girls - but she trusts that one of them will take care of the problem). And then Alice drops down, fingering the cigarette in her left hand and presses it to the man's left cheek, giving a laugh filled with tears as he shrieks and whispers. "Hurts like a bitch right?" Then she stands up and gives him a kick in the stomach with her steel capped boots, Mary laughing at the sound that leaves his mouth, and Lily and the rest turn around, facing the bystanders Marly and Ainee have taken care of.

"James right?" Lily gives a smirk, and bats her lashes in a mockery of their last meeting. "Gonna be joining us?"

"What the hell!" Glasses hisses, his face white with horror as he takes the flinching man on the ground.

"See our friend was . . . getting a little ahead of himself," Lily frowned, tapping a finger to her chin. "So we just helped adjust his attitude."

"What did he do?" Pretty Boy - Sirius - looks green in his questioning.

Marly angles her head and gives a grim smile, the smile of someone who's experienced too much in her short time. "He decided Lil was looking fine today. Lil didn't agree with him and things got a bit . . . out of hand."

Mary gives a laugh at the sick humour involved - it's her favourite type.

"There are police," James steps forward, his face starting to regain colour as he looks away from the man on the floor.

"Sure," Ainee shrugs, and taps her cigarette off, before spitting some of the ashes at the mans feet.

"Why didn't you go to them? They're here to help!" One of the others insists, and Mary hangs her head back and gives a laugh because as always they were right - fucking rich white boys.

"In this neighbourhood chances are he's the cop," Lily jabs a thumb over her shoulder at the man on the floor whining like a baby. "But you won't tell will you?" The girls all bat their eyelashes on cue. No chance in hell are they telling. Who would they? Who'd believe them that a bunch of teenage girls are going around beating up powerful men?

James rolls his eyes and his temples, looking up like he's praying. "There's no God 'round here," Mary gives a laugh, speaking of deeper things.

"Hey James," Lily pats him on the shoulder, as her girls start walking out. "Watch out for yourself alright?" She gestures at the floor. "Wouldn't want you to end up like him right? But maybe if you do, you and I will meet again," she swoops in and pecks his cheek, leaving a blood red mark, a mockery of his girls back home in his fucking manor or bloody estate (she's not sure which is more likely - school and history and politics seem a world away), and walks out, crunching the debris of the street with her unheeled boots and picks up the mans briefcase and browses it, drawing out a couple of hundred pounds and then chucks it to the ground, and walks with her girls, lighting a cigarette as she goes.

thanks loves! this'll have a couple of chaps and yeah romance later but i'm just in love with my smoking!lily and red lipstick!lily and boots!lily and bamf!girl gang


	2. Chapter 2

tw: racism, mentions of rape

When they come, she's the only one awake.

They don't have a warrant, they don't have anything of the sort, and yet they knock down the door, and run into the house, shouting out "Police!"

Lily knows what to do. She quickly strips Marly of her jacket that she's still wearing from last night and shoves it down her covers and pulls them over her sleeping friend, hiding her still clothed body from sight. Moving quickly she does the same to Mary and Alice, and barely has enough time to chuck a blanket over Ainee, when the blond leader pushes the door of her (their) bedroom open and grabs her by the arms.

Lily lets out a sound, a low whining sound, faking being hurt. She knows what she has to do to get out of here and she will do so. "Sir, I must ask - what is it that I did wrong?"

"I'm here to arrest you for theft," one of the other cops goes to pull the sheets down on Ainee's bed.

"No!" Lily protests, because she can deal with her being manhandled, but any of the others is never okay. "She's Muslim! She hasn't covered herself!"

The guards don't seem to care, and besides they're all wealthy, upper class, white men who probably sit around all day blackmailing and smoking cigars, and so if there is a hearing, it'll be their word against hers.

"Please sir," Lily starts pleading, and let's the crocodile tears that have been building flow down and the cops are pulling all of the girls out of the house and then piling them into the car and there are tears and crying and Ainee's dragged a blanket around her and Mary curls up against Lily, almost her size, and the two start sobbing and Lily pets her hair with a shh shh shh.

Stupidly the girls never thought this would happen, because they never thought that someone would be _stupid_ enough to think of trying to blab on them. They're the real authority around her and they're going to learn that soon enough. But now they simply will bat their lashes and act like the whole thing is so unexpected (and well, it is) and act like they would never dream of doing the horrible despicable things they are accused of (the things that make's Lily's eyes glint with happy tears and Mary give a deep, twisted laugh as she throws her head back and Alice light her cigarette). But they haven't _ever_ murdered anyone. They prefer simple torture over murder. Prefer letting people living and breathing and simply _being_ their errors in life. They can be the one's doing the killing. She and her girls just like triggering it.

Lily throws her head back against the wall and stretches her legs out as the car pulls up, in front of what Lily assumes is the police station. The girls are dragged out of the car and pushed into the building through the doors, and shoved into a cell. Lily's not stupid. They might say that they're being arrested for murder, but really the men like the idea of a go with some girls they don't have to do anything for. None of them think that they actually think that they've ever _murdered _someone.

But no way in hell are they going to have a go with anyone. No fucking way she vows, and takes Mary into her arms, sweet, half crazed Mary, who wakes up with amicicide and fratricide and parricide and patricide senicide and siblicide on her lips, ready and always burning, burning, burning for vengeance. No way in fucking hell, she thinks and shoots a glare at the one who eyes them openly. The girls curl up around her, shooting daggers at the man locked in the holding cell with them, who's another drunk too stupid to keep quite at his local pub.

Sure enough, as Marly curls up around Ainee on the filthy floor and lights a cigarette, one of the men come in. "We'd like to speak to you," he points at Lily. "If you could come with us."

"I'm so sorry sir, but I'm quite unaware as to what we're being charged with?" Lily questions, and bats her eyes, remembering she's got yesterday's makeup smudged over her eyes and her lips.

"Petty theft," he grunts, turning red as he looks away. Yeah nah, Lily thinks, with a roll of her eyes.

"Correct me if I'm wrong sir, but I can simply ask for bail for that can't I?" Lily frowns.

"Miss-" Marly stands up, towering over him, like she towers over everyone, all dirty blonde hair and skintight jeans and her leather jacket (honestly did she just _want_ to get into a fight?).

"Sir," Marly's voice is just as mocking and fake as it is on the streets and Lily feels a surge of pride at her foolishness which she quickly regrets. "I'm going to go make my call on that phone there -" she points at the phone on the wall nearby "- and then you are going to leave my friends alone. Okay?" She cocks her head and Lily gives a breathy laugh as the cop turns and flees the chamber.

They cuddle around each other, as Marly rings up her mother. "Yeah mum - no not trouble - they're just. Like mum cops are jerks right?"

They don't talk about it much, but Marly's families' got money. More than most of them. Just as she hangs up and comes to sit down, another cop walks in, this one with dark hair, and skin that's almost not white.

"You've been released," the officer grunts out, and unlocks the bars.

Lily and her girls, stand up, all long legs and awkward movements. Ainee's somehow managed to wrap Alice's scarf around her head in a way is somehow acceptable. Lily pulls Mary to her feet, grabs out her pack of cigarettes and takes Marly's lighter, lighting the cigarette, hands the lighter back to Marly and they all walk out, to the front of the police station.

With a finger directed in the direction of the blond police officer from Mary, the five exit the police station, dragging out cigarettes and checking for their knives.

Nothing was confiscated, because they know that their 'arrest' was completely off the record. They all knew how shit worked around here, and Lily took a drag of her cigarette before offering it to Ainee, who as always shook her head. "Lily is it?" A voice came from behind them, and the girls all whirled around.

It was bright now, the morning, and strangely enough, sunny.

"Sir James," Lily took a drag of her cigarette and looked him over. He was standing by the wall, leaning in the way city boys did, all forced nonchalance as their palms sweated, not with anticipation but with fear. "What are you lads doin' round here this fine day?" She raised an eyebrow. "Internin'?"

James looked away, as Sirius stepped forward.

"Why don't you be quiet?" He cocked his head. "He just got you out."

"You talked to the cops?" Lily raised an eyebrow. "Did I fucking ask you to?"

"I was just doing you a favour!" James protests, and Lily steps forward, tapping her cigarette off.

"Did I ask for a favour?" Lily bits her stained red lip with a glare. "Did I need a favour?"

"Look, they didn't have grounds to arrest you!" James is protesting.

"What's your last name?" Lily cocks her head and pops her hip. "Fudge? Diggory? Black?"

"Potter," James growls out, his cheeks turning a ruddy red.

"Oh _Potter_ is it?" Lily says in a sickly sweet voice. "Why don't I tell you how it works around here? Men - cops, businessmen, fathers - they like girls. Come like boys, but majority like women. And little girls are their favourites. Somehow the world was fucked up enough for them to decide that they somehow deserved to be able to take what they want from these girls and when they want. So they hide them away and tell them to keep quiet or you're dead, keep quiet or everyone will hate your, keep quiet. And we don't. We know the rules of the world and we break every last one of them. We take care of ourself. But you can't. So you better buck up and pull yourself together, otherwise you're going to end up with your pretty face punched in."


	3. Chapter 3

They're back in the alleyway where they first met, and her hands are against the wall, and hung around Alice's shoulders and Mary and Marly are making out against the other walls, and Ainee screws her face up and fixes Alice's afro, like normal, keeping to the tradition they have when they hang out in this alley. They've got a couple of bottles of vodka they stole from some wealthy party they gatecrashed the other night (they stole some of the scotch, but they all promptly gagged at the taste).

"So, things are not gonna stay like this forever," Ainee says, once she's fixed Alice's hair and fixed it with a headscarf.

"You're saying one of us is gonna like get married or some shit?" Marly detaches herself from Mary with a pout. "Not me by any means."

"Look," Lily leans forward and they all pay attention, because Lily's in charge and none of them are fucking idiots and none of them are stupid enough to think that she'd ever do something that would cause anything bad to happen to them. "We can get married and do shit like that. Or we can become fucking hippies or some shit. What we don't do is stop standin' up for us and the girls in town. Men are jerks 'ight? That's not 'kay but it's up to us to tell 'em that the shit they are pullin' ain't 'kay alrigh'? So we're gonna be doin' shit and stopping' shit that men are doin'. So we don't stop even if we grow up."

"And we tell our kids not to be half wit fuck ups," Mary says softly, and her eyes fill with tears.

"Damn right," Lily says and the girls pass around a bottle of vodka, before Marly gets a glint in her eyes.

"What the fuck is happenin' now?" Lily grins, her lips curling up, coated in blood red that no doubt has her mother turning in her grave.

"There happens to be a party on tonight," Marly says. "My parents were invited, and some members of the community attending . . ."

A grin reaches their faces, and they jump up, holding cigarettes and their bottle of alcohol in their hands and heading for the bus.

* * *

They take the bus uptown, giggling and laughing, and being tipsy like they haven't in too long, threading their hands through each others hair, and along each others ribs and waist and pressing kisses against each others necks and cheeks and wrists.

There are older men and women and younger men and women and children that send them looks, and glares and almost spits and yet they simply laugh and flick them a finger, jumping off the bus and walking to the front of the hotel foyer where the 'gala' is being held, and give them Marly's name, and laugh at the expression on his face, before waltzing through the door like they own the place (and if they'd had the opportunity to get an education higher than tenth grade that damn well would have).

Sure enough the society matrons and patrons and their trust fund babies point them out, and with a roll of their eyes, they each grab a champagne flute from the server, Lily shooting a glare as the server tries to question if she and Mary are old enough.

"Marlene," one of the elder women comes up to them, all classic black Chanel, the perfectly appropriate length, with strings of pearls hung around her neck, and her red nails tapping her glass as she bites her lip. "It's so great to see you darling! Are these your . . . friends?" She screws her face up.

"Great to see you too Margaret," Marly drawls, her voice coming out slurred as it always does when she has a lot to drink. "Great beer ain't it?" Her voice is purposely street in an accent that she rarely uses unless she wants to piss off someone or tell them she's tough. In this case it's most certainly the first one.

"That's champagne honey," the woman, Margaret, gives a stiff smile. "From the south of France. Costs thirty pounds a bottle."

"So it's fancy shit ay?" Marly asks. "Oh, sorry love. This is Lil, Mary, Alice and Ainee."

"A pleasure," Margaret's eyes are frosty cold now, and she gives a marble smile before starting to turn. "If you'll excuse me I have other gusts to attend to."

"We're here to fuck shit up aren't we?" Ainee asks, and an older man gives a shocked look, almost stumbling over his feet as he pulls his cigar out of his mouth. "What you never heard a Muslin girl swear before?" she raises an eyebrow.

"Maybe he's just never had a girl talk dirty to him," Mary says loudly, missing that part of polite society where you care what everyone else thinks and instead just talking loudly and the girls laughing at the daggers directed towards them.

They stand around for a while, talking loudly about the issues that these white, wealthy, straight, Christians are ignoring, mostly because they're interested, but also because they're trying to piss everyone off and maybe influence the youth. Racism and sexism and homophobia and xenophobia. Nothing is ignored and it's all done with a smile on their perfectly painted lips.

Of course halfway past midnight, Lily notices a familiar face. Which is weird because anyone they'd . . . treated should have the sense to run away. But rather, her good friend James Potter is standing by the drinks table, with a pretty blonde girl, whose hair is pulled down into a pretty bun at the nape of her neck. So of course Lily can't resist and walks over, a smile on her face, and slings an arm over James' shoulders, as her girls hang back laughing.

"James!" She gives a high pitched squeal presses a kiss to his cheek. "It's been so long!" She leans forward, flashing him an impressive view of her chest and he flushes, as the girl he was talking to scoffs.

"I saw you like a week ago," James rolls his eyes.

"Who's this?" She bats her eyes at blonde.

"I'm Callie," the girl gives a bite full of more bite than teeth and lips.

"Oh you're his . . . ?" Lily gestures wildly, frowning and smacking her lips as she goes.

"Friend," Callie hisses. "Just friend."

"Oh is 'at right?" Lily grins, before pulling James to her. "Guess that means I can do this," and in one foul swoop pulls him in and lands a kiss of his lips, grabbing the back of his neck, followed by MAry wolf whistling, and Ainee falling over with laughter.

She pulls back and arches a smile at James, who is slightly breathless and whose lips are now perfectly pouted and slightly swollen and stained red.

"You're going to get me in so much trouble," James draws Lily close to him, and she laughs even as Callie scoffs and turns away.

"Well I'm sorry bout Callie - she seemed like a nice girl," and she kinda is sorry, because Callie is twenty times better than she ever could be but no way in hell is she saying that.

"Does this mean I get a date?" James asks.

Lily frowns, pulls back and slides a mans pen out of his pocket as he walks past, grabs a napkin and scribbles a number down. "Why don't you call me and we'll try and figure something out hun?"

And she walks back to her girls and they all leave in a whirl of giggles and big hair and red lips and leather jackets.

last chapter! yay! what did you think?


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